Tent spiders common on the east coast

Mr Milledge said tent web spiders were quite widespread in Australia, and had much larger webs at the top of the country.

"This particular species, seen here in Port Macquarie, seems to favour wet areas, swampy areas, and there's another species up in north Queensland which is quite large and they build quite large webs," he said.

"It's not unusual to see large masses of these spiders.

"It's quite likely that most of these are juvenile and not many generally reach adult stage, so as the season progresses they will probably thin out.

"Spiders are a major predator of insects so they are a good pest controller."